Ute tray design and load requirements.

Question

Ute tray design and load requirements.

Dinga17 (Mechanical)

(OP)

11 Jun 22 04:03

Hi all.

Does anyone know of any design requirements and load factors to be used for ute tray design, particularly in Australia? I haven't found any ADR documents which outline anything specifically for ute trays. I have found VBS 1 which has a lot of the design and loading requirements for trailers but nothing for ute trays.

I've done a bit of digging on Google but I can't really find anything helpful. Particularly interested in the loading requirements for design similar to how the ADR specifies loading requirements for trailer drawbars.

Thanks.

GregLocock (Automotive) · Answer 1 · 2022-06-11 08:14:04

Each competent OEM has their own design and installation manual for aftermarket trays.

Cheers

Greg Locock

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Dinga17 (Mechanical) · Answer 2 · 2022-06-11 09:33:50

Hey Greg,

Yeah they definitely do. What I was trying to ask/find out is - is there a baseline that all tray manufacturers have to design to? Certain load cases, minium safety factors etc. Like we do for any other design. The ADR seem to not include detail like this.

GregLocock (Automotive) · Answer 3 · 2022-06-12 00:20:12

No, not so far as I know. I'm actually working on an application for a ute where the tray capacity is crucial, but it is definitely designed by us, no ADRs at all. That may be because our internal engineering requirements already exceed the ADRs, but in other homologation work i have always directly referenced ADRs, not relied on engineering requirements.

https://www.nsw.gov.au/sites/default/files/2021-02...

seems pretty blase about ute trays.

Cheers

Greg Locock

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Dinga17 (Mechanical) · Answer 4 · 2022-06-12 08:03:48

Yeah that's fair enough. Reason I ask is particularly in Australia, every man and his dog make their own tray. Generally they are over designed so there may be no reason to worry about dodgy engineering as such.

So basically you are just doing the general checks with live and dead loads to make sure members are sized correctly?

Even with trailers there isn't a whole lot. Just the requirements about markings etc and some load requirements for drawbars.

GregLocock (Automotive) · Answer 5 · 2022-06-12 23:50:15

An OEM tray will have a full fatigue life estimation using FEA. I don't know how the body people account for the strange use cases a tray sees. I remember one builder told me the first thing he did with a new ute was to reverse it into a power pole with the tailgate down to create a notch for carrying pipes. I kept a straight face.

Cheers

Greg Locock

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Ute tray design and load requirements.